He sat down at last by the water-side, his eyes bent on a calm, green pool.

It looked very peaceful; and it could give peace.  He thought, oh! what a blessing; to be quit of rage, jealousy, despair, and life, all in a minute!

Yet that was a sordid death for a soldier to die, who had seen great battles.  Could he not die more nobly than that?  With this he suddenly felt in his pocket; and there sure enough fate had placed his pistols.  He had put them into this coat; and he had not worn this coat until to-day.  He had armed himself unconsciously.  “Ah!” said he; “it is to be; all these things are preordained.” (This notion of fate has strengthened many a fatal resolution.) Then he had a cruel regret.  To die without a word; a parting word.  Then he thought to himself, it was best so; for perhaps he should have taken her with him.

“Sir! colonel!” uttered a solemn voice behind him.

Absorbed and strung up to desperation as he was, this voice seemed unnaturally loud, and discordant with Camille’s mood; a sudden trumpet from the world of small things.

It was Picard, the notary.

“Can you tell me where Madame Raynal is?”

“No.  At the chateau, I suppose.”

“She is not there; I inquired of the servant.  She was out.  You have not seen her, colonel?”

“Not I; I never see her.”

“Then perhaps I had better go back to the chateau and wait for her:  stay, are you a friend of the family?  Colonel, suppose I were to tell you, and ask you to break it to Madame Raynal, or, better still, to the baroness, or Mademoiselle Rose.”

“Monsieur,” said Camille coldly, “charge me with no messages, for I cannot deliver them.  I am going another way.”

“In that case, I will go to the chateau once more; for what I have to say must be heard.”

Picard returned to the chateau wondering at the colonel’s strange manner.

Camille, for his part, wondered that any one could be so mad as to talk to him about trifles; to him, a man standing on the brink of eternity.  Poor soul, it was he who was mad and unlucky.  He should have heard what Picard had to say.  The very gentleness and solemnity of manner ought to have excited his curiosity.

He watched Picard’s retiring form.  When he was out of sight, then he turned round and resumed his thoughts as if Picard had been no more than a fly that had buzzed and then gone.

“Yes, I should have taken her with me,” he said.  He sat gloomy and dogged like a dangerous maniac in his cell; never moved, scarce thought for more than half an hour; but his deadly purpose grew in him.  Suddenly he started.  A lady was at the style, about a hundred yards distant.  He trembled.  It was Josephine.

She came towards him slowly, her eyes bent on the ground in a deep reverie.  She stopped about a stone’s throw from him, and looked at the river long and thoughtfully; then casting her eye around, she caught sight of Camille.  He watched her grimly.  He saw her give a little start, and half turn round; but if this was an impulse to retreat, it was instantly suppressed; for the next moment she pursued her way.